Sunrise over gravel

Even gravel can look beautiful as the sun rises and every piece of stone throws long shadows.
Why so much gravel?
The snow melts because the temperature is a couple of degrees above freezing.
The melted snow freezes as it hits the ground because that has previously been well frozen and is still below freezing.
Then it rains and that freezes on the ground too.
So you spread gravel to help avoid too many broken limbs. This has been going on for about a week which means there is now a lot of gravel on the ground.
Where has the snow gone? I've never had a green Christmas in Sweden before (in 30 years) but it's looking like this could be the first time.